Lakeside Retreat

What a pretty place to spend an extended weekend. :)

A week ago, this was the site of my annual personal retreat (a long weekend spent in contemplation, self-examination and looking forward). It also happened to work out to line up with a semi-annual doctor visit, so it was a multi-purpose weekend - all good purposes!



The grounds were lovely, with a good amount of leaf color left.



And, on Friday at least, it wasn't raining. The rest of the time ... :( Accommodations were simple, but sufficient - a remodeled farmhouse (and I use the word remodeled loosely).



But I don't think the Jesuits have ever been long on luxury, have they?



The retreats at this place are all silent, so I didn't say a word to anyone there until I actually paid my bill on Monday, and it seemed fitting to stroll the grounds and hear nothing but leaves rustling, taking in the views.








That, plus some very positive time in Milwaukee, seeing the doctor as well as some comfortingly familiar surroundings, made for a great weekend! Sort of felt like birthday came a week early. Think I might try to do something like it again next year, circumstances permitting. :)

Now, on to more birthday celebrating!

Hard-hearted Pharaoh?

Our latest assignment in the Pentateuch class is to relate the seemingly conflicting statements in Exodus about God "hardening Pharaoh's heart" so that he would not let Israel go, and those statements that say "Pharaoh hardened his heart", indicating that Pharaoh was responsible for resisting and not God. This is a real trouble spot, for me and many others. This response is yet another indication of the influence of Seminary on my perspectives. Calvinist no more, I guess...


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If one is a good Calvinist, one would say "what God permits.. God also ordains." This is because God is seen in this system as having perfect exhaustive foreknowledge (He is never surprised), and exercises complete sovereignty (His will is never thwarted). A good Calvinist would be perfectly comfortable with the notion that God deliberately hardened Pharaoh's heart in order to force him into a position where God could then punish the Egyptians for their 400-year abuse of Israel. It was God's will for Pharaoh to resist. He couldn't help himself.

And if someone objects to God's punishment of Egypt on the grounds that Pharaoh could not resist God's will (any more than we can, for example, resist God's saving grace if He elects us), and so should not be held guilty, we can then hear Saint Paul's sharp rebuke ringing out: "Who are you, O man, to talk back to God?" (Rom 9:20) In other words, such impertinence! How dare you question God? You are nothing but a lump of clay on the wheel for God to make for whatever purpose He pleases, even to smash into powder and re-form.

Well..

If one were not a Calvinist, but rather an Open Theist, one might suggest that God does not have perfect foreknowledge, but rather is open toward the future. God is omniscient, yes, but His omniscience only extends to what actually exists, and the future does not yet exist. Only possibilities do. Only likelihoods do. God knows the inclination of our hearts, knows our temperaments, and knows those perfectly. He is exceptionally good at anticipating what we will do, since He knows us better than we know ourselves. And in this present case, He knew Pharaoh's heart inclinations and his temperament - perfectly. God knew the hardness in Pharaoh's heart, his stubborn pride, and He let it emerge.

Perhaps God even goaded Pharaoh into exercising that native pridefulness by the way God set up the confrontation, and the back-and-forth exchanges with Moses, the trading of threats and escalating plagues. Maybe God used Pharaoh's stubbornness to His own advantage, in the same way that one can goad a "macho" guy into fighting by publicly questioning his manhood. You use his insecurities against him, to get him to do what you want him to: land that first punch, so you can then proceed to lay him out on his back legitimately.

Regardless of whether God "hardened" Pharaoh's heart against his will, or whether God moved a naturally hard-hearted Pharaoh to the course of action He wanted by skillfully goading him, what matters is that God eventually gets what He aims at, whether we stand in His way, or cooperate with Him. God indeed is not thwarted in His overall purposes by our disobedience. But we can certainly suffer by opposing His will, and avoid hardship by cooperating with God. The inclination of our hearts makes all the difference, and God knows exactly what those inclinations are.

The Weepies

Well, it's been some time since I've reported back on a concert! I've learned that not much comes through here, compared to my prior community.

There, I could've gone to a show twice a week and not repeated any band all year long. Here... I find that I can really plan ahead. ;)




A new venue, in a new community, about a two hour drive away, but oh, so worth it to see a band I've been following ever since that JCPenney Christmas commercial where they sang "All That I Want".




The lobby was crowded, waiting for the doors to open, but the theatre was probably only 2/3 full by the time the headliners took the stage. It was a Tuesday night, after all, in a relatively small (albeit a college) town in the middle of ... cornfields. You can understand low attendance, on - you know - a school night. ;)



The crowd was pretty mixed. Not many teens, but lots of college-age and a bunch of older types, too. It's kind of ageless music, I guess, with broad appeal. They had the stage set with luminaries and candles, which was cool. And as often happens with me, I liked the opening act a lot: Matt the Electrician.



He was a folk/pop singer/songwriter with a great sense of humor and nicely spun stories. I picked up his latest "Animal Boy" as an advance birthday gift for self, to be opened on the day.



The Weepies themselves were on tour to promote their latest (and 4th) CD, "Be My Thrill", which is full of the same combination of light pop feel, deep lyrics, and gentle two-part harmonies, definitely in the indie style of chording (no Everly Brothers major thirds here).

There are great turns of phrases in some of their songs, like this one about a guy who is trying to deal with missing a girl, and doesn't want morning to come:

"Sun's coming up slow, like he's thinking it over; the moon throws a dirty look over his shoulder."



I had tweeted them earlier in the evening, requesting that they play "Painting By Chagall", which.. they did! Aww.. I always get sentimental when I hear that one. Yes, alright, I get sentimental about a lot of stuff, but.. some things more than others. :)

Getting ready for a scolding - updated

Post-doctor visit report: No scolding, gained only 1 pound, but all other readings improved. Nothing out of range. :) Yay! One healthy specimen, this guy...

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By the time this posts (love this advance posting date feature..), I'll be 400 miles from home and sitting in the Dr.'s office waiting to get yelled at. :(

Well, maybe. We'll see I guess. My weight is probably up from last time, and she snapped at me about it then. Grrr...

But since this time I had the blood work done at a lab near home, they allowed me to see the blood test results right away via fax, and... they don't look so bad! Cholesterol's okay (both kinds), triglycerides are fine, blood glucose right at the range's edge. Thyroid hormone is alright, testosterone acceptable, minerals all good, PSA fine. The only real problem area is hemoglobin, but that's been consistently high for as long as I've been tested.

All I'm really concerned about is poundage. If she judges with the scale and not her eyes... I'm done for. :) Hmm... maybe if I wear a muscle shirt...

Umm, no.

Regardless, this office visit is followed by three days of retreat time on the shores of Lake Winnebago, to do my annual exercise of taking stock of myself. Plus whatever else my heart, feet and hands find to do that's pleasant. No doubt I'll think of something. :)

Reflections on Genesis

I'm hustling right now to get ahead in my class assignments, so that when I take my annual retreat weekend in a few days I don't have to think about writing papers or posting on the discussion boards. I want to have a clear schedule so that I can be serendipitous! So I'm grinding them out right and left. The following is an assignment from the Pentateuch class where we were asked to post reflections on our time in Genesis. Hm. I doubt very much if I would have written these lines a half-dozen years ago. My perspectives have changed some.


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Reflections on Genesis

1) the role of the Bible in the Christian faith seems to be primarily about revealing God's character (not necessarily details about His essence or basic nature), His purposes in the world (particularly the redemptive purposes), essential aspects of human nature, and relationships in the created order. To use the Bible properly in the church today as Scripture requires that we respect its core purposes, and not overlay it with a Western Enlightenment scientific mindset. Modernity's penchant to require truth be at a granular level, rather than at the level of meta-narrative, is not consistent with the vast pespective of human history.

2) it seems to me that God does indeed do justice (good rewarded, evil punished, oppressed lifted, haughty made low, etc.)... but over time. Over generations and centuries, even. God is under no obligation to do justice on our timeframe, or even within the span of a human life. His reactions to us are not necessarily immediate - He doesn't close the feedback loop with the speed we would like. It's kind of like submitting several papers in a class and hearing nothing from the prof by way of evaluation until after the entire class is over and nothing can be changed. Sometimes the prof doesn't even answer your direct questions but instead offers vague generalities! You just have to go by what the prof told you in the beginning, your own instincts, and the advice of others who've taken that class (if they're still around!)

3) related to #2 above, I don't see individual (note that word) human beings as essential to the fulfillment of God's purposes. Humanity in general, yes. Individuals, no. God has many resources at His command, including many humans. He can work out His will without my or your cooperation. Individual cooperation with God is much more important for OUR well-being than for God's. :) His well-being is not dependent on us. However, ours is dependent on Him. The same can be said of His will and its outworking.

4) not all strife in the Bible is used by God to accomplish His will. This is not to say that God cannot use strife to further His ends, because He does (witness the selling of Joseph into slavery). But that is a far cry from saying that God always allows strife to happen because it is necessary to the outworking of His will. Here we can look at the strife between Hagar and Sarah. If those women had made serious effort to preserve harmony in Abraham's home, and had put their own selfish agendas aside, God could still have had the promise descend to future generations through Isaac. He could have made it crystal clear to all parties that Isaac was elected to carry the promise, without forcing Ishmael to separate from the family. There was no real strife between the brothers, just between the mothers. It appears that God did not incite the strife; he allowed the sending away of Ishmael, and turned it into blessing, only AFTER the strife had occurred. The separation in Abraham's family was not ordained ahead of time.

5) I really find myself questioning God's purposes in consistently passing over the first-born in Genesis, and then making such a big deal of the importance of the first-born in Exodus and later (through the Law's requirements to redeem the firstborn, the firstfruits of the womb, as rightfully His, set apart to Him). It's almost as if God is saying "do as I say, not as I do". What is going on here? I don't get it. And it perturbs me a bit, really. It's one of the things I voice aloud to God at times and get kind of worked up about it. God cuts me some slack in these matters, I think, because He knows that I know that I know nothing, and don't even pretend to understand. But I do voice my opinion to Him. ;)

Run 1K? Are you kidding me?

It's been a while since I've worn one of these:



Following that nasty case of plantar fasciitis, and then the pinched sacral nerve, I was laid up for roughly 10 months. Packed on a few pounds over that time. And in a few practice runs last month, I found that the layoff and weight gain took a toll on my endurance. So I didn't think I'd be running through one of these any time soon:



But then, this charity event came along, and at a race length I thought I MIGHT be able to handle. One kilometer. One.

Yeah, man, that's my kind of athletic event. If you can call it an athletic event at all. It was mostly a beer run followed by a party.



This was the start of the race:



And here's where it finished:



So basically you ran from one bar to another, and had free beer at both ends. :) Warmups consisted of 12 oz. arm curls, if you get me. It's kind of awkward to run with a half-full beer cup. Kinda forces you to slow down. Not that slowing down is a bad thing...

The scenery was at least nice, running (and I use that term loosely) past the baseball stadium with a nice view of downtown:



I thought about renting a bike from the public bike kiosk, and riding the whole kilometer, but ... that wouldn't have been sporting.

Theology and Coffee

Fall appears to be coming to my fair city. Either that or the local trees have a thing about getting their tips frosted.



And speaking of my fair city...



This is one of the fairest shots I've seen of it. Pretty.

Are speaking of pretty shots...

this one at the coffee shop yesterday is something you don't see every day. A Rolls? Oof. I hung around to see who's it was, but nobody showed up, and eventually I got tired of studying.



One can only dig into the intricacies of 1&2 Chronicles for so long. Coffee does help, but only so much.



So, I went for a walk in the surrounding mall-ish area, which was gearing up for Martini-fest 2010. $15 for a pass card that gets you 10 sample-sized martinis at 10 different night spots in this retail area.



Sounded like a good deal, but the martinis offered were all frou-frou sugary concoctions that hardly resemble a martini at all. No thanks; guess I'm a purist in that regard: half gin, half vodka, a little dirty, four olives. That'll do, bud.

But it was a swell day to walk around and change my scenery before diving back into more tales of Israel's Southern Kingdom (aka Judah). At least there they had a few good kings, not such a bunch of corrupt politicians and hoodlums like those Northerners...

Football & Fall

... made for each other.



We begin with a visit to the family cabin for sibling birthdays,



and continue the next day with a flyover at the stadium. :)



Patriotism and football on a crisp sunny day in Titletown, USA.



You know, it's all very Upper Midwest small town Americana...



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Yeah. Football in the Fall. There's nothing quite like it.

Human Nature in Gen. 1-11

Week 3 Post from OT 501

Q. How does Gen. 1-11 shape your conception of humanity and how does that conception relate to your culture's dominant construal of human nature?

A. The clear picture I get from Gen. 2 is that humankind is relational, social by nature. Even Gen. 3 says the same, but it also describes relationship when it's dysfunctional because of sin. Gen. 4 shows the "inhumanity" of Cain's punishment, via his pitiful reaction to forced isolation from others. Later on, Babel shows the social nature of humanity, and what it can become when self-exaltation and narcissism goes unchecked. There are many examples beyond these few. We are clearly made for healthy relationships, and are hurt by their lack, or their distortion.

Our predominant cultural model of rugged individualism, shaped by both the Enlightenment and the Frontier, argues directly against the inherent value of relationship and community. One of our culture's highest values is independence; we despise dependency. We seek autonomy, shun collectivism; we praise self-reilance, condemn an entitlement mentality. We put relationship and interdependence on the back burner, sacrificed to achievement and self-fulfillment.

We should be careful not to think that the existence of sin renders the case for relationality moot. Sure, we can hurt each other because of sin, and often do. But, we only hurt in our relationships because we are hungry for wholeness there, and painfully feel its absence. It proves the case, not disproves it. Personally, I am only now beginning to realize my own deficiency in this regard. I still value independence and autonomy higher than I do relationship and community, but less dramatically so than even 5 years ago. I can at least now argue the case for them in a balanced way.